1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to manure handling. More particularly, the present invention relates to apparatus and machines for clearing litter bases from the floor of poultry houses.
2. Description of the Related Art
Poultry is one of the most economic and nutritious meats available. One of the principal reasons that chicken is so economical is because chicken farmers and processors have a very orderly and organized production plan and program that is highly efficient.
Typically, chickens are raised by farmers who in turn have contracts with large poultry or broiler processors. Generally, small chickens are furnished to the farmer by a processor and the farmer manages the feeding and raising of the chickens from small chicks to appropriate broiler size. Ordinarily, the period of time for raising small chickens to a full grown broiler ready for processing is approximately seven (7) weeks.
One very important key in making broiler production profitable for both the farmer and the processor, and for keeping poultry costs relatively inexpensive, is to minimize the time the chicken house remains empty between flocks. Obviously, the more chickens that can be raised for a given time in a certain house, the more profitable the operation.
In the past, the real problem in providing a short turn-around time between flocks has been the inability to clean and ready the chicken house for the next flock in an expeditious manner. When raising chickens, chicken manure (called litter) falls onto the floor and collects throughout the chicken house. Much valuable time has traditionally been lost in cleaning the litter from the chicken house because it has ordinarily been done manually by hand and shovel. With labor often being in short supply and the nature of this particular job being what it is, this too has added to the difficulty of getting the chicken houses cleaned in a quick and efficient manner.
Traditionally, the cleaning of a chicken house resulted in the entire litter being disposed of. This is not a practical way to efficiently and cost effectively separate reusable litter from the caked manure and other materials when cleaning the chicken house using manual labor. Thus, under conventional practices all of the caked manure and associated litter were removed by hand. Thereafter, a new bed of litter or shavings was spread over the floor prior to a new flock of chickens being introduced into the house.
To address these problems, several efforts have been made to automatically clean chicken houses. These efforts have included machines that can pick up litter from the base of the chicken house and separate the hard crust or caked material, wet litter, feathers, and other trash from the finer particles of litter which can be reused. Typically, these automated machines are designed to be pulled or towed through the chicken house by a tractor. Examples of these machines for loading and separating litter bases are found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,897,183, U.S. Pat. No. 4,711,403, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,662,420. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,897,183, 4,711,403 and 3,662,420 are hereby incorporated by reference for all purposes as if set forth herein in their entirety. Commercially available machines for picking up and separating litter include the Lewis Poultry Housekeeper, manufactured by Lewis Brothers Manufacturing, Inc. and the KMC Poultry House Cleaner available from Kelly Manufacturing Co.
While automated machines have been effective at cleaning the majority of the inside of chicken houses, they have not been successful at cleaning that portion of a chicken house floor immediately adjacent to the walls. Typically, the walls of a chicken house have fans mounted on the wall several feet above the chicken house floor. These fans and heaters protrude into the chicken house and prevent the automatic clean out machines from being pulled directly over the floor area next to the walls of the chicken house. As a result, there is generally a strip several feet wide along the walls on the chicken house floor that must be cleaned manually. Typically, this involves using manual laborers with pitch forks to go through and clean out the caked manure.
A typical chicken house is approximately 400 feet long and there are two sides that require manual cleaning. Generally, a small chicken farm has at least six of these large chicken houses. Since each of the chicken houses must be cleaned out approximately every seven weeks, the labor involved in just cleaning out along the inside walls of these chicken houses can be very expensive and time consuming which effects the ultimate efficiency of the chicken farm. It would be desirable to have an automatic clean out machine capable of cleaning chicken house floors along the interior side walls of the chicken houses. Further, it would be desirable to have an attachment, that could be added to existing machines to enhance their clean out ability to allow cleaning of chicken house floors along the interior sidewalls of chicken houses.